One More for Seth

The Seth Williams Blog Brigade is asking for your help once again. We would like you to pledge to vote for Seth in the May 17th primary. The other bloggers can speak eloquently about the political reasons why you should vote for Williams. I wish I were that plugged in, but I’m not. This is what I can tell you,and bear with me because I will be making a point.

I wanted to go to the gym this afternoon but it just didn’t happen – an impromptu meeting took up that time. I planned to go to a political debate tonight but that went by the wayside when the fan belt (or whatever it is called) in the dryer broke and there was a basket of wet clothes to be hung around the house to dry (because no one had time or energy or enough quarters to go to the laundromat). There might still have been time to make the debate but I had promised to send a snack to scouts on Friday and pick up some supplies for a PTA event this Saturday and finish up some things for a school program tonight to keep it on target tomorrow. So, there was no time for a debate, regardless of how much I wanted to go. It would have thrown off the household schedule for days.

What does this have to do with Seth Williams? There are people all over Philadelphia who have much more hectic schedules and much less time and money, and when called as trial witnesses they take time off of work to go to court and do the right thing and fulfill their civic duty. They show up in court only to hear that the case needs to be rescheduled because someone isn’t ready or someone hasn’t shown up. They jump through hoops to get to court the second day the case is scheduled to hear the same thing. If you were one of them would you show up the third time? The fourth?

We keep hearing that half of all criminal cases in the city are dismissed because people don’t show up or the prosecutor isn’t prepared, having just been handed the case, one of many they are handling. The current DA can’t refute that because she doesn’t believe in keeping statistics. Now, really, how many of you reading this don’t keep some sort of record of how you are doing? One of the little Janes is supposed to read for 20 minutes every night as part of his homework. Much as Mr. Jane and I love and trust him, we also time him. When I turn in an annual report each year at work I don’t write “I did a good job and you should give me a big raise” with no correlating or supporting evidence. Especially when you are on the public payroll you have to keep good records. Call me naïve but I think that’s just a basic rule.

The current DA released the farewell letter Mr. Williams wrote when he left the DA’s office a few years ago for private practice; he had been there for ten years. In the letter he praises the current DA and she is making a big deal of that. Hey, folks, I’ve left jobs and written carefully crafted letters of resignation that, while not outright dishonest, certainly did not reflect my true feelings. Likewise I have sometimes thanked people for help that I could have done without, and been gracious to the parents of my children’s friends when they are not people I would have chosen to spend time with (and the feeling was probably mutual).

Releasing that letter was tacky. I know politics is a rough and tumble business, but this race has been pretty clean so far. Mr. Williams has not made any personal allegations about the current DA nor has there been any nasty gossip at all, let alone any associated with his campaign. He has not taken the low road and played the race card. He has behaved as honorably as one might expect someone of his caliber and previous shows of character.
I can’t vote for Mr. Williams. If you can, I like to encourage you to consider it. If you think you can make a pledge to vote for him, please do so on his web site, www.seth4da.com/vote.